Reports have been surfacing that the Department of Education is kicking borrowers out of Income Driven Plans when they file bankruptcy. It makes no difference if they are in a Chapter 7 or 13. It also doesn’t matter if the debtor is current in their payments. The National Association of…
Ignoring your debtor’s federal student loans in their Chapter 13 bankruptcy can have catastrophic circumstances. While fixing vehicle, credit card and mortgage debt, you may have inadvertently allowed a debtor’s $100,000 federal student loan to balloon into nearly $150,000 by doing nothing. This is because the standard procedure of the…
There are a ton of people who believed their student loans were discharged when they loans were simply listed in their bankruptcy. It may have been years before the private student loan companies started to communicate with the borrowers to collect this debt which added to that impression. As it…
Are you expecting a large tax refund this year? If so, and you have had some financial difficulties this year, do NOT file your tax return if you are in default on your federal student loans OR about to file bankruptcy. Instead, some pre-planning is in order. For federal students…
The automatic stay that normally applies when a debtor files bankruptcy, does not work the same in a second or even third bankruptcy case. This has caught many debtors unaware and may cause the loss of a home. In a 2nd bankruptcy filing, the automatic stay expires after 30 days. …
All debtors must appear at a meeting called the “341 meeting of creditors”. Creditors may, but usually do not appear, and it is the Trustee asking most of the questions. This 341 must occur for a bankruptcy to be successful and applies in both a Chapter 7 and 13. The…
Debtors are presently denied the opportunity to participate in income driven plans in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy in most of Florida. Instead of allowing for an income based plan, the federal government places these loans in forbearance for the typical five year plan. Do you know what happens to a…
The word “household” appears in over a dozen sections of the Bankruptcy Code, but it is not defined in the Code. Household income and size are extremely important in bankruptcy and determine whether someone qualifies for a Chapter 7 or the length and amount of a plan payment in a…
In a perfect world, a mortgage creditor should: Timely file accurate proofs of claim for prepetition arrearage; Properly calculate postpetition PITI payment; Apply payments in accordance with confirmed plan; Conduct annual escrow account analysis that reflects payments made under confirmed plan; Send accurate payment change notices, with attachments for RESPA…
One of our most successful cases this month was the discharge of private student loans for our client who attended a Caribbean medical school. The key was that the foreign medical school was not listed on the Federal Schools Codes List as being eligible for federal funding. That particular fact…